Audrey Streb
Contributor
President Donald Trump’s administration is gearing up to effectively cut the Office of Oceanic and Atmospheric (NOAA) Research by ending its primary research office, according to multiple reports.
The Office of Management and Budget (OMB) sent an internal memo that outlines huge changes to NOAA, according to Politico, Axios and The New York Times, who reviewed the memo. If the administration’s proposal makes it through Congress, NOAA’s climate change research will effectively cease, according to reports.
“Reaching balance requires: resetting the proper balance between Federal and State responsibilities with a renewed emphasis on federalism; eliminating the Federal Government’s support of woke ideology; protecting the American people by deconstructing a wasteful and weaponized bureaucracy; and identifying and eliminating wasteful spending,” the memo states, according to Politico. (RELATED: Trump EPA Reportedly Axing Obama-Era Greenhouse Gas Emissions Disclosure Rule)
NOAA has a history of supporting left-wing ideology, shelling out over $3 million on “Teek and Tom Explore Planet Earth,” an animated film featuring a space alien with “gender-neutral” pronouns, according to Daily Caller News Foundation reporting.
The White House, OMB and NOAA did not respond to the DCNF’s requests for comment and a copy of the internal memo reviewed by Politico, Axios and the NYT.
NOAA would receive roughly $4.5 billion in its 2026 budget, down from around $6.1 billion in its 2025 budget, according to Politico.
The OMB memo, referred to as a ‘Passback’, also reportedly said that the NOAA’s operations, research and facilities budget would be slashed from $4.8 billion in 2025 to $3.47 billion in 2016, a total of 38%.
“The Department should act now to align existing resources and activities to the direction of the Passback,” the memo reportedly reads, stating that it is necessary to cut “unsustainable costs” in NOAA’s satellite programs.
NOAA Research partners with other arms of the NOAA and the Department of Commerce, according to its website. Its research “provides the research foundation for understanding the complex systems that support our planet,” the site reads. “Our role is to provide unbiased science to better manage the environment, nationally, and globally.”
This memo comes after the admin’s cuts to dozens of climate policies — implemented by both the Obama and Biden administrations — in order to “unleash” domestic energy production and reduce taxpayer-funded programming.
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There are some federal agencies, like EPA, Energy, Education, or ATF, that attract zealots who wish to impose their belief system on the general public, and who feel justified in doing so. RIFing most of the staff is a short term solution, changing the underlying laws to limit their authority would more long term.
all agencies
As an auto industry engineer during the 1974 automobile fuel crisis (and continuing), I had to deal with a number of EPA employees working on vehicle fuel economy test procedures. I can assure you that at the time, most were “zealots who wish to impose their belief system on the general public, and who feel justified in doing so.”. The job obviously attracts that kind of people. and still does. There’s not much that can be done about that except deal with it with appropriate financial controls.
Restrict their “mission” and financing to defined activities.
Nothing else,
No mission creep by creepy people.
If anything DEI, or gender, or pronouns, etc., is mentioned anywhere, there will be an automatic $10 million deduction from the budget for each occurrence.
Any deviation from defined activities must be approved by the chief executive, I.e., THE PRESIDENT
As Prof Cliff Mass observed last week, a cleanup in aisle 3 is certainly warranted in NOAA and other such agencies.
Back to the basics, the Joe Friday approach (just the facts m’am) is what’s required.
Is seems to have become standard for all organizations to establish a climate office.
All the better to spread the word for “the cause”.
Anything to get more funding FOR THEIR CAUSE
Like the Vatican climate summit: https://www.umb.edu/news/recent-news/vatican-climate-summit/
You really can’t make this sh*t up. Praying is not enough I gather?
In that Vatican article- is a photo of my governor Healey meeting the Pope. He should tell her to go home and stop the Net Zero BS. If he did that, I’m sure she’d obey, being a good Catholic. 🙂
That article is loaded with BS. Amazing.
So humans can do what God can’t? Funny that coming from the Pope.
Is NASA GISS and Gavin Schmidt on the way out?
“Is NASA GISS and Gavin Schmidt on the way out?”
One can only hope.
So far, the proposed NASA budget that includes GISS is facing significant reductions in funding. And lottsa offices are gonna have to trim or go away, And remember, in Washington, a budget cut means not getting an automatic increase from last year’s budget.
Most of NASA’s trimming seems focused upon “earth sciences” and not space-related stuff. Must be folks looking at NOAA offices that should get our money, huh?
And does RSS funding get cut as part of that? One can only hope.
GISS should be a repository of the raw data and the raw data only. That is the measured temperature, the meta data and circumstances of the measurement. No delivery of data ‘products’ filtered by the algorithm and biases of the day.
NOAA would receive roughly $4.5 billion in its 2026 budget, down from around $6.1 billion in its 2025 budget, according to Politico.
The OMB memo, referred to as a ‘Passback’, also reportedly said that the NOAA’s operations, research and facilities budget would be slashed from $4.8 billion in 2025 to $3.47 billion in 2016, a total of 38%.
Right idea maybe, both culturally and financially. but its tiny
Let’s be completely neutral about the merits of the Administration agenda and just try and scope what it entails and how likely it is to succeed.
The problem is that the US is running unsustainable deficits – both budget deficits and trade deficits. Both have resulted in rising debt, currently over 120% of GDP. The previous policy has in effect been to buy goods from China, paying for them by national debt held by China (and similarly some other countries). This is fine on a modest scale, but its become huge, and debt has risen faster than GDP, which is the key characteristic of the game entering its final stages.
The final stage of this is default, in various ways. One is money printing, which has been an invariable feature of national decline. It used to be debasement of the coinage, now its quantitative easing, when the central bank prints money to buy the debt. This works for a while, but in the end results in devaluation of the currency and loss of its reserve status.
The causes of the underlying situation are very deep in the society and culture. At the bottom there is simple denial of the changing relative situation of the US. A bit higher up you see the political establishment obsessed with debates on issues, if they are even issues, of no importance – climate, race, gender. You also see, another sign of an infected culture, these obsessions gaining traction in all kinds of local government and also non-governmental organizations, so the in addition to the big three above the fashion for DEI hiring and promotion policies, prominent corporate lip service, and often more, to Net Zero. Education is a particularly hard hit area,
All this results in a proliferation of entitlements and of complacency about the deteriorating position which inhibits action and leads to a policy of muddling through while being in denial about the fact that the situation is deteriorating and unsustainable.
This Administration appears to have concluded it has to do three things: one being to move to, or in the direction of, a balanced budget. The second is to reduce or eliminate the trade deficit. The third being to have a cultural revolution. Its problem is, it only has four years, but this is a ten or twenty year project. So we are seeing lots of impulsive and ill thought through efforts. Some, like the recent China tariffs, are drastic and would be effective, but turn out not to be doable in the economic and fiscal situation in which the country finds itself. Others, like the NOAA proposals, are too small to have much effect, and too resource consuming to be done on a grand scale across the whole country.
The cultural initiatives, in country of free speech and lots of local autonomy, with an independent press and largely independent education sector, are very tough to define and to manage effectively.
So, will it work? One hopes it will, there is some chance that it will. The next presidential election will provide a key indicator. But the chances are not great. There is a reason why great powers, when they decline, only reverse their decline after a period of prolonged strife and anarchy, devaluation and defaults. It takes such dramatic events to clear out the rigidities and enable a new start.
Read the late great Mancur Olson for an account of the mechanism, the glue that makes revolutionary change attempts like wading through treacle. Its looking so far like a serious effort, but not one where you want to place large bets on success.
Yep, when governments are more worried about things like gender and climate than they are about their industries, you know they’ve taken their eyes off the ball!
About their industries, yes, but also about their citizens.
“but it’s tiny.”
Agreed. Spending will be over $7 trillion this year and without major changes will increase by $200-300 billion annually. The annual deficit is expected to grow from $2 trillion each year. On the revenue side, if the top 1% pays an effective rate that they paid when the budget was balanced in 2000, that would increase tax revenue by only $60 billion per year. So, costs are going up by $200-300 billion and having the rich pay what they paid the last time the budget was balanced gets a tiny fraction of what is needed. Major changes are needed. The first step is to have the politicians have an adult conversation with the voters that we are on an unsustainable path and cuts to spending in distasteful ways are necessary and unpopular tax increases are equally necessary. The amount of waste, fraud and abuse doesn’t get the job done. Changing our expectations of what government does might.
The flaw in your proposal is that cutting tax rates always increases tax revenue. Therefore, although it seems counterintuitive, and there will be those claiming any tax cuts need to be “paid for”, tax cuts are the right call to encourage economic activity and increase revenue to help balance the budget. This has to be matched with cuts in spending, which has always been the sticking point
Unfortunately “trickle economics” entered the conversation.
The correct term would be flow down economics.
An engine works better with higher potential difference between high and low.
The economy is an engine.
Musk does not have a Scrooge McDuck money bin full of cash.
He build industries the employ and pay people who pay taxes. The corporations pay taxes. When the products are sold, more taxes. I am not saying what Musk gets out of this is good or bad, just pointing out that his value adds significantly to the economy.
Tiny, indeed, in mere terms of direct $s. However, not unimportant. Unneeded and misdirected government programs and dictates set the table for massive impacts and wasteful spending in the general economy. Crushing the head of the federal policy and regulatory beast will have far-reaching economic impacts.
far-reaching positive economic impacts
In order to effect significant change, one has to upset the status quo and disrupt complacency.
We are seeing this.
When one considers the Tactics, Trump is giving everyone wake up calls via initial gambits. Then the dealing starts and the initial gambit is withdrawn as the deals are made.
Thirty million illegal aliens (that was Yale’s number a decade ago), at $100K each annually in welfare and bureaucracy costs, is 3 $trillion annually, and inflating with the fiat currency. The real number is certainly much larger. Many are replacing Americans in institutions of higher learning, with full rides. It is a national tragedy.
The children just aren’t going to know what Climate Grift is anymore.
Unfortunately Congress tends to ignore Presidential budget requests especially big cuts.
I see where four Republican U.S. Senators are asking the Trump administration to continue to subsidize windmills, solar and EV’s.
I hope Trump holds the line on subsidies. If these companies can’t make it on their own, the U.S. taxpayer should not be bailing them out and they should fail, just like any ordinary business that picked the wrong horse to ride.
We want less windmills and solar, not more. We want windmills and solar to go out of business because they are increasing the costs for everyone in the United States.
Typo: 2026 not 2016
Our politicians past and present are the cause of budget deficits and administrative rot. They desiring to stay in office and wield evermore influence, power and control have spent countless billions unaccountably. Regulatory agencies have become epicenters of tyrannical zealots always validating their existence with extreme regulations for which technology does not exist! Need I mention they are more than willing to implement the latest political/social/racial justice tenets without question. The administrative state has cul-de-saced themselves and huge changes are eminent………
I think this is a good start. I would go one step further. I would warn NOAA that its grant making will be under intense scrutiny. Funding grants with political ends or tendencies will not be tolerated and if NOAA continues with studies for that purpose all grant making authority and funds will be withheld indefinitely.
More pseudoscience refugees for France
It only makes sense. WAY back in 2003, Gore asserted “Climate was Finished Science” in the ‘Inconvenient Truth’. Twenty-two years later, it finally becomes true. All those super-computers grinding out black-box community climate models can be turned to useful AI aps instead, such as searching out waste in computing.